Kudu

If the Patrol System was included in the "mountaintop experience" of Boy Scout training, the 300 foot minimum distance between Patrols would be commonly known as "Baden-Powell's 300 feet." You are correct to list Boy Scout camping as a subset of Cub Scout camping. For Camping Merit Badge to qualify as a Boy Scout award in Baden-Powell's program, it would require "scouting" (lower case) in his military sense of the word (the ability to move miles through the back woods): 1) Patrol Scouting: Scoutcraft learned in at least monthly Patrol Hikes and/or Patrol Campouts (in common with Green Bar Bill's "Real" Patrols). 2) Individual Scouting: The Scoutcraft of each rank tested by a solitary or buddy backpack or canoe "Journey" without adult supervision.

Semantics? Scouting was a "pre-existing movement" when Congress picked the BSA as its American monopoly corporation, in EXCHANGE for the promise to define Scouting as the Scoutcraft program practiced on June 15, 1916. A naïve prospect would immediately associate the BSA with "Scouting," but we pay a guy a million dollars a year to badmouth Scoutcraft in the name of Wood Badge. It's as if Congress granted the Yellow Cab Corporation a monopoly on "Taxi" on June 15, 2016. You call for a taxi on June 16th, but a guy arrives at your house to teach you "leadership skills."

Better to keep it vague, DuctTape! Do you really want RichardB to decide exactly how closely leadership skills helicopters must hover? His centennial attack on the Patrol Method followed a "request for clarification" a member of another Scouting forum sent him to settle similar questions about Patrol camping. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Our Patrols with serious Patrol Leaders do camp a mile away on backpacking trips, but backwoods adventure filters out most of the troublemakers, and the Patrol Leaders ban the rest. We allow electronics in the backwoods too, so a mile is not very far.

Wood Badge killed Green Bar Bill's position-specific "Patrol Leader Training" (how to camp a Patrol in the woods without adult supervision), and replaced it with generic "leadership skills." RichardB celebrated the BSA's centennial by finally putting the Patrol Method out of its misery with a bullet through its brain in the "Guide to Safe Scouting."

Packsaddle, Who's "we," white man? If your priority is Leadership Development's "Controlled Failure:" Elections every six months so that Positions of Responsibility change hands often then, yes, you must pack your Patrols in close together like Cub Scouts so that "we" adults "can respond in a more timely manner." On the other hand, if like Baden-Powell and Green Bar Bill you guide your most mature and gifted leaders to be Patrol Leaders, then they will handle the pyromaniac tendencies of boys just as well as they did before the invention of "Leadership Development," back when Scouting was popular.

Scouter99, I think you are the first person in the history of the Internet to admit to such a thing! Patrol camping out of sight of the adults once made every campout a "favorite outing." To do so safely requires strong Patrol Leaders.

qwazse commented: "...hypothetically a car club called 'International Harvester Scout Owners'." I believe that the BSA went to court over the use of "Scout" as a vehicle name. Can anyone a Google a reference to it? They did sue the GSUSA over the term "Girl Scouts:" http://www.inquiry.net/adult/bsa_vs_gsusa.htm

A principle of leadership he learned in a Patrol some physical distance away from the rest of the Troop?

Some of our backpacking crews. Patrols are camped 300 feet apart: http://www.youtube.com/user/At300Feet

You asked how to get more parents engaged, I said offer backpacking, canoe, scuba, now you are bragging about how few parents you have engaged. I wonder why everyone is avoiding this thread now...

Your heels are in good company: The BSA's Chief Scout Executive uses the term "rubbing two sticks together" to express his contempt for Scoutcraft. Just curious: Have you ever camped Boy Scout Patrols Baden-Powell's minimum distance apart?

What kind of boy does not want to know "what to do in case of a runaway horse," how to escape quicksand, or land a 747 for that matter?

From the "Urban Emphasis" program of 1972, through the recent "Hispanics Hate Camping" media campaign, the Wood Badge dream has been to find a minority that hates Scoutcraft as much as the BSA's professional millionaires do.

The Chief Scout Executive said as much in when he introduced "Prepared. For Life." as the opposite of the Scoutcraft of June 15, 1916: "Did you know that there was a time when to be a First Class Scout--you guys didn't know this I bet--did you guys have to learn how to catch a runaway horse to be a First Class Scout? When was the last time you saw a runaway horse?" Audience response: "Tuesday" "Tuesday? Whoa! OK. Oh, that's right! This is Amish country, isn't it? So what do we mean by being 'Prepared. For Life'? Obviously we don't have to learn how to catch a runaway horse anymore. That's not an important skill!" Watch his chins shake in moral outrage: http://inquiry.net/leadership/sitting_side_by_side_with_adults.htm

Yeah, I answered that, didn't I? The Patrol System is based on physical distance. Troop campouts work the same with two adults, or six.

So adults who coach youth or soccer games in which the end zones are spaced 100 yards apart have "issues"?

You asked four questions. I answered 3&4. Questions 1&2: I usually set the price at $10 per campout (which includes a good Dutch oven supper on Saturday), + a small refund. Money usually comes from the parents, but sometimes directly from the paper route Scouts' pockets...funny story about why I started permission slips --> a pair of European brothers who always paid their own way, and one weekend forgot to tell their parents we were going camping... As for the number of adults on a regular campout, in the last urban Troop of which I was Scoutmaster, usually me and one other adult, unless you count the cigarette-smoking 14-16 year-old SPL who actually ran the Troop for my last two years. He joined the army on his 17th birthday, a couple weeks after I moved to Florida. High Adventure always attracts more adults. Backpacking: Maybe four to six on the low mileage Scouts' route (Patrols camped at least a football field apart), zero accompany the higher mileage Scouts when they plan to meet up with adults at a common destination before dark. Scuba in a rural Florida Troop: One adult per two youth divers (total of 20 divers), including at least one certified divemaster with the ten to fourteen year-old divers. I'm not sure what you are really asking...

BasementDweller: We find good Facebook photos between parents of Boy Scouts are effective in attracting the attention of parents of Cub Scouts. A surprising number of parents in other Packs around the county are "friends" on Facebook. As for youth, most of our Boy Scouts have hundreds of "friends," so announcements scroll by unnoticed by them.

Don't overlook the power of action photography on Facebook. "Here's what my son Jimmy did this weekend!"

Yes, if you offer backpacking, climbing, scuba, canoe trips, shotgun, on a regular basis, word will get around, and high adventure parents, district/community/friends of friends will volunteer for those trips. These are adults who want NO part of typical BSA monthly campouts. As for regular recruiting: Consider a Facebook, YouTube, and Web presence: We get a slow but steady stream of Scouts who transfer to us from standard Troops. I plan to add Google+ soon. Also, we make sure that Scouts earning the 1st Class "tell a friend or lapsed Scout about Scouting" requirement, to bring their friend to a cool campout (they do NOT have to register). Figure another 10% per year there. And, of course, anyone with access to a public or private school can bring in an extra twelve (12) to twenty registered Scouts per year using my 6th Grade Recruiting Presentation: http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm Yours at 300 feet, Kudu http://kudu.net Wow! Thanks Chris!

Here is the permission form I used in a "Baby Sitters of America" Troop with mostly absent parents: http://inquiry.net/outdoor/equipment/

That describes the various Baden-Powell Scouts associations, except they are based on B-P's more rugged Patrol System and badge requirements, with the specific year of either 1938 or 1965.